LineageOS Details Recent Changes and Android Oreo Progress

For the first time in several months, the team over at LineageOS have released an update on their recent work and updates as well as a progress report on their Build 15 train for Android Oreo.

The bulk of the work that has been going on since their last update, which was way back in September, has been on maintenance and security updates for the Build 14.1 train (Android Nougat) and 13.0 (Android Marshmallow). These have included fixes for the KRACK vulnerability, updating to the October & November security updates, new touchscreen gestures, and support for extended NFC. There have also been updates to the Recorder and Gallery as well as an update to the battery icon in that time too.

The question on everyone’s mind who uses LineageOS is when will Android Oreo hit? The team addresses that in their update.

As many of you have seen (and we’re sure some of you are running them right now), a number of unofficial LineageOS 15.0 builds exist, some of which are built by our very own maintainers. These are in no way representative of a final product, but definitely let you all experience some of the features Android 8.0 has to offer.

Once that the basic framework has been put in place and devices are successfully booting LineageOS 15.0, some features are being brought forward, most of which are dependent on what was previously known as the CMSDK. A large focus while doing this has been to evaluate the need to carry-forward or otherwise clean up the leftovers from our inception last year.

However now that Android 8.1 has been released, we’re anticipating moving straight to the 15.1 branch where we’ll merge all our work done for 15.0 and finish the porting effort.

The takeaway for readers is that an Oreo build is coming but there is no definitive timeline on when that will happen.

Finally, as is normally the case, the team has updated the roster of supported devices as well as those that have been deprecated. The new devices include the Sony Xperia Z5, the Xperia Z4 tablet (both LTE and WiFi models) and the LG K10. Devices that are no longer supported include the Moto Z Play and the LG G4.